Print shops are typically medium or large scale facilities capable of supplying printing services to meet a variety of customer demands. For example, print shops are often used to print documents used for mass-mailing (e.g., customer bills, advertisements, etc). Because print shops engage in printing on a scale that is hard to match, their customer base is usually varied. Print shop clients may therefore include both large institutional clients (e.g., credit card companies and banks), and small clients (e.g., small businesses and churches).
Print shops are generally arranged to print incoming jobs from clients in a way that is economical, yet fast. Thus, print shops often include a number of high-volume printers capable of printing incoming jobs quickly and at high quality. These printers may be managed by operators who can remove paper jams and reload the printers with media. Print shops also typically include post-print devices that are used to process the printed documents of each job (e.g., stackers, staplers, cutters, binders, etc.). Because print shops serve a variety of clients, they are often tasked with printing jobs that have varying printing formats, delivery dates, and media requirements. Print shops therefore often use a centralized print server that coordinates activity between printers of the print shop and clients. The print server schedules incoming jobs and forwards them to the printers they are directed to.
Clients with printing needs communicate with the print shop to send print jobs to a server. The server may then assign the print jobs to a print queue prior to printing the print jobs, or a print operator may assign the print jobs to the print queue. Typically, print jobs are assigned to a print queue based on a common set of print settings for the jobs in the queue. For example, print jobs for printing on A4 paper may be assigned to the same print queue. These jobs may be queued for printing on a printer loaded with A4 paper. In some cases, the print operator may wish to assign a print job to the print queue that has a different set of print settings than the other print jobs in the queue. For example, the print operator may wish to assign print jobs for printing on A4 paper to a queue for a printer loaded with letter paper. This type of assignment will fail because the print settings for the new job do not correspond with the print settings of the print jobs already in the print queue. This makes scheduling harder for the print operator.